Commander Manders as Love Guru

I am often under the impression that most people have all these expectations of what “the perfect guy” should be like. He should kiss you like this, he should hold your hand like this, he should do this whole laundry list of things to prove he loves you more than anyone else and that you are the only thing in his world blah blah blah. I get it. The chick flick and every Nicholas Sparks novel ever written has warped the female psyche and our expectations of love.

On principle, I think that’s stupid. Your man should love you and respect you and there’s nothing wrong with being treated like a princess, but for God’s sake, you’re never gonna find the “man of your dreams” if you’re so wrapped up in all the things he simply has to do in order to make his affections count. Speaking from experience, it is far too easy to forget that your boy (and every other boy on the planet) has wants and needs and also expectations from you. The relationship is not all about you and what you want. 

Ephesians 5:22-28 says:

 ²² Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

 ²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansing^[a] her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷ and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸ In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 

 People express their affections in different ways. Within certain parameters, just because a guy doesn’t text you every half hour or comment on all your pictures or kiss you in the rain and on the forehead (I may or may not have barfed all over my laptop) doesn’t mean he doesn’t dig you. The way the above passage was once explained to me means that if you and your husband/boyfriend/whatever are walking down the road, he walks on the street side. If a car comes, your safety comes before his. That is sacrificial love. That's the love that counts.

I’ve struggled for a long time with this concept. It used to be whenever I was in a relationship I always figured my boyfriend only did nice things or said nice things to me because I had pressured him into it somehow, that vocalizing my insecurities forced him to try to appease and assuage me. I was always so focused on making sure he knew, he KNEW, how intense my feelings were for him; like he wouldn’t believe I loved him unless I said it a million times on the phone each night.

And living like that is just exhausting. It’s okay to just believe someone when they say they care about you. I’ve struggled forever with this. But I think it just comes down to knowing you’re beautiful and awesome without some guy feeding you the lines he thinks you need to hear in order for you to stay with him. Confidence will never come in full from someone else’s opinion of you. Besides, love is about a lot more than improving body image or social standing.

I think I’m finally at a point in my life where I’m ready to love with a big love. A love that is a caregiving love. A love that has big arms. It’s not all about my feelings and making them known. Relationships are about putting the needs of another wholeheartedly ahead of your own and the willingness to do absolutely anything for someone else. If I can have that level of mutual commitment with someone, I think how often he “hugs me from behind and picks me up” will tumble down the priority list.

In short, don’t believe everything the internet tells you about how relationships should be.
Except this blog.
:D